Espírito Santo

Espírito Santo, a small maritime province of Brazil, lying immediately to the north of the province of Rio Janeiro. Area, 17,053 sq. m.; pop. 130,717. The surface is mostly flat and swampy, the climate moist and hot, and the vegetation luxuriant. Sugar, coffee, cotton, and timber are exported, but the trade is not of much importance. The former capital, Espírito Santo, founded in 1535 on a bay of the same name, has sunk to a fishing-village; the present capital is Victoria, on the same bay.